Let’s take a step back in time to a brisk day in October — a day that became a defining moment in Nationwide Boiler’s history. On October 17, 1989, at exactly 5:04 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Northern California. For residents of the San Francisco Bay Area it was a moment frozen in time, one they would never forget.
It was a calm fall evening. More than 50,000 fans were settling into their seats at Candlestick Park for Game Three of the World Series, while millions more across the country tuned in to the live broadcast. As the stadium announcer provided pregame updates, no one could have anticipated what was about to unfold. Then, the ground began to shake. Screams erupted and the announcements stopped. ABC broadcaster Al Michaels, usually composed and articulate, was momentarily speechless. The energy of the stadium was replaced with an eerie silence. What followed was one of the most significant earthquakes in California’s history: a 7.1 magnitude event that would later be known simply as “the big one.”
In a matter of seconds, freeways collapsed, bridges broke apart, and buildings shifted from their foundations. The World Series was postponed. Fires erupted in multiple areas, including a major blaze in San Francisco’s Marina District, and millions of gallons of water were deployed by first responders to fight the flames. In the midst of widespread devastation, the city narrowly avoided a far worse outcome and utility services remained operational through the night, allowing emergency crews to respond effectively.
At Nationwide Boiler’s office in Fremont, Service Manager Neil McIntosh was still absorbing the shock of the quake. As he cleaned up broken glass and restacked books scattered across the office, he had an uneasy feeling that it would be a long night. And he was right — at 11pm that evening, the facility engineer from PG&E’s Potrero Power Plant, San Francisco’s primary power generation facility, called with a critical issue that could lead to the need for a rental boiler. And the standard question followed: “How fast can you respond?”
In the hours following the earthquake, PG&E engineers struggled to diagnose a serious problem: the plant’s electrically powered feedwater pumps, responsible for supplying water to the boilers that generated steam for turbine operation, had unexpectedly shut down. Under normal conditions, multiple backup systems would prevent any drop in water levels. But in this case, the boilers continued running without feedwater. When the pumps were eventually brought back online, it was already too late. The boilers were dangerously overheated, and it was no longer safe to reintroduce water. In a stopgap effort, a U.S. Navy ship docked next to the power plant was called in to provide emergency steam to cool the boilers. While helpful, this solution was temporary, and the city’s only other power plant was operating at full capacity to meet soaring demand. A failure at Potrero could have led to widespread outages. The only sustainable option was to deploy a high-capacity, fully equipped mobile steam plant that could deliver the right temperature, pressure, and controls to safely restart the system.